Today I get to start sharing Gracie’s Spring Look Book.
I really should start with my inspiration post but I’m too excited so I’m going to just jump right in and share my inspiration later…maybe on Wednesday.
This is the first look that I made for Grace. We just registered her for kindergarten so there has been a lot of talk about school next year—including what “school girls” wear which is where the idea for this look came from. (She doesn’t have to wear a uniform but still thinks that all school girls wear skirts and dresses.)
I actually made a tutorial for both pieces of Grace’s outfit but to keep this from being the world’s longest post I’ll just share the skirt today and then I’ll do the shirt next week.
So…if you want to make a skirt like Grace’s for your little one (or for yourself…I just cut one out for me…) then follow these instructions and you’ll have it made!
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How To Make A Drop Waist Knit Skirt
#1. You’ll need to take 4 measurements:
1. Your waist
2. Your hip/seat (the area between your waist and your knees that is the biggest around—mine and Grace’s is right around our bums)
3. The length between your waist to your knee
4. The length from your waist to where you’d like your drop waist to end and the gathers of your skirt to begin.
#2. Now that you have those 4 measurements you’ll need to do some math—but don’t worry it is really easy math. The math is to get the measurements for the 2 pieces that you need to cut out for your skirt.
The first piece that you cut is the top of your skirt and should be as wide as your hip/seat measurement plus one inch and as tall as your waist to hip measurement plus one inch.
(See I told you the math was easy—it’s just your measurements plus one inch!)
*For Gracie’s skirt her top piece was 22 inches wide and 6.5 inches tall.
Then the second piece you cut will be the bottom gathered portion of your skirt and it should as wide as your hip/seat measurement plus half of your hip/seat measurement
(For Grace her hip/seat measurement was 21 inches so I added 21 plus 10.5 and made the gathered portion 31.5 inches wide.)
And it should be as tall as the measurement you took from your waist to where you want the gathered portion to begin plus a half of an inch.
*Gracie’s bottom piece measured 31.5 inches wide and 8 inches tall.
Now the hard part is over and we can get sewing!!!!
#3. Take your bottom piece and let’s hem it! I don’t have a surger so I turn my hem under and zig zag, but if you have a surger then do your thing baby!
#4. Now run a long basting stitch along the top edge of the to-be-gathered piece of your skirt. Using this stitch gather your fabric until it is the same width as the top piece of your skirt.
#5. Now place the top and bottom pieces of your skirt right sides together and pin together. (You are pinning along the edge that you just gathered and pinning it to the top piece of your skirt.)
#6. Then stitch those two pieces together along the entire width of your skirt.
#7. Fold your skirt over right sides together and sew up the open side. (This will become your back seam.)
#8. Make your elastic casing at the top of your skirt and insert elastic. (For step by step instructions on how to do this you can go HERE to our Simple Spring Skirts Tutorial and it will walk you through how to put in an elastic casing.)
And you’re done!
It’s such a simple skirt to make and I really love it.
I just wish we had at least another year here at home before Grace is officially a “school girl”.
I am so not ready for this.
-liZ
We never are, are we? My Grace is finishing up preschool right now and getting ready for kindergarten in the fall. And her new elementary school is a uniform school, too. Which means that come summer, I’m probably going to be making khaki skirts, shorts, and pants, because she’s so tall we can’t buy the skirts and shorts long enough to comply with the uniform code, and she’s a weird size. She drowns in 5s, but 4s are getting too short…
LOVE the new look of the blog! and super cute skirt. off to kindergarten??
Yes! I can’t believe it…I’m going to freak out. The only thing that is going to save me is that kindergarten is only like 3 hours long…
Why can’t my kids stay little forever?
-liZ
Yes! I can’t believe it…I’m going to freak out. The only thing that is going to save me is that kindergarten is only like 3 hours long…
Why can’t my kids stay little forever?
-liZ
How cute is she?!?!?! Love this look!
Darling outfit!! I can’t believe Gracie will be heading off to kindergarten! I am sure she will be best dressed in her class and think of all the fun field trips and cute art projects she will be bringing home 🙂
Aww poor mom!! I love this outfit! Thanks for the tut!
P.S. after a while you won’t know how to function with out your 3 hours…that’s prime grocery shopping time.
Would it work to take a simple tee shirt and pleat a skirt around it? As long as you didn’t put the seam where they would be sitting on it and busting threads, I thought it would make a cute dress. I have several grandkids and need to find patterns the easier the better!! LOL
When my kids went to kindergarten, the stores didn’t open until 10! It was hard getting back in time to pick them up. I know that was many years ago.